


Seawater

by littleblackfox



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gratuitous use of the words 'Sea flap-flaps', M/M, Marine Biologist Bucky, Mola Mola, Skinny Steve, Smut, axolotl, barcelona, shrinkyclinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 03:28:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9053359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackfox/pseuds/littleblackfox
Summary: He stops in front of a large glass tube; pale, translucent Jellyfish floating serenely within. “Look at these guys, Moon jellyfish. You’re an artist, tell me that’s not beautiful.”Brooklyn stares into the display, the soft blue light highlighting the cut of his cheekbones, the softness of his lips, and Bucky squeezes his hand a little harder. Brooklyn turns to him and smiles, small and crooked and painfully sweet.“Yeah, I guess they are.”Bucky can’t look away, something painful lodged in his throat. “Those horseshoe shapes on the caps are their gonads.”Oh, for fuck’s sake.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenoftheRandomWord42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenoftheRandomWord42/gifts).



> "I'm a Biology student with a minor in Genetics and Marine Biology" Queenoftherandomword said.  
> And this happened.
> 
> Written for the Stucky Secret Santa 2016  
> I hope you like it!
> 
> Now with amazing art by the lovely [Trish](http://frau-argh.tumblr.com)

Bucky keeps close to the buildings as he walks along Via Laietana. It’s still early, the sun is low in the sky, but he keeps to the shade as much as he can until he has to run the gauntlet of Passeig de Colom, a wide avenue lined with palm trees that offers no protection from the fierce heat of the Catalonian summer.  
He tugs the peak of his baseball cap down and crosses the busy street, the sun striking him like a hammer as he makes his way to Moll d’Espanya, overlooking the port.  
There is the slightest breeze coming off Port Vell, and he takes slow, shallow breaths, the air thick and humid. He swears to Poseidon that the next research assignment he does will be in Antarctica or Greenland or something because Jesus Christ, how do people function in this heat?!  
He looks out past the serried lines of yachts and houseboats moored in the port to the deep blue of the Balearic. It is pretty, though.  
He follows the footpath to the aquarium, taking one of the staff entrances into a warren of storerooms and service areas alongside the building with all the fish in it (or at least the ones not in quarantine, or the hatcheries, or the prep rooms where unfortunate smaller fish are chopped up for the more fortunate larger fish). He traipses up the thousand flights of stairs, pulling off his baseball cap and fanning himself with it as he reaches the floor where the poky little shoebox that passes for his shared office is.  
He sticks his head through the door to find the room empty, and throws his hat onto his desk. He unclips his backpack and dumps it on the floor, firing up his computer and letting it whir and clunk and whine its way into life while he makes coffee.

He’s pretty sure that his officemate, Luis, has some sort of sixth sense when it comes to a fresh pot of coffee, as the door flies open and the short, cheerful Mexican comes barrelling in, a sheaf of papers tucked under his arm and snatches Bucky’s cup of coffee out of his hands the second that he’s done filling it.  
“Coffee! You fucking lifesaver, man!” Luis takes a swig of Bucky’s goddamned coffee and flops down on his side of the desk, propping his feet up on a half open drawer.  
Bucky suppresses a sigh and fills a second cup. Luis is the axolotl specialist, hyperverbal and the sweetest guy Bucky has ever met. He takes his coffee to his seat and starts prodding at his computer. Live, you fucker.  
Luis fans his papers out on his side of the desk. “So I was talking to this guy, my Ambystoma bro in Manitoba, you know, like the flour?” Bucky hums noncommittally. “Manitoba flour? High protein? Dude, you use it to make bread, like really fine-ass, chewy Italian crust?”  
Bucky’s computer finally starts cooperating and he pulls up his files and starts working. “Uh-huh,” he mutters.  
“Well, we got a policy of no items less than 3cm in diameter in the tank, right? Endangered species, no good trying to repopulate the earth if they’re dyin’ of bowel obstruction?” Luis gives Bucky an expectant look.  
“No?” Bucky offers.  
Luis points a finger at him triumphantly. “Yes! So this flour dude thinks the little guys are gastroliths, man! Like they need a couple of rocks in their gastrics, helps them grind down their food and shit. And yeah, I get that, they eat pretty much anything they can cram in their cute little faces, and those are some freakin’ adorable faces with the little branchial gills-”  
“Luis,” Bucky murmurs. Once the words ‘branchial gills’ come out of his mouth, any chance of peace and quiet for at least half an hour is as good as gone.  
Luis takes the hint. “So anyway, I was saying to this flour guy, what about buoyancy? These teeny little river cats could be swallowing stones for balance, y’know like crocodiles? Because I was looking at this one little guy, and he had like sixteen pebbles kicking about in his guts, and worms don’t need that much grinding, yo.”  
“Mmm,” Bucky offers, opening his email.  
“So I had this whack theory, and I called him, because I needed to call him anyway because of this neoteny shit going down, and flour dude is all like ‘what, Luis, I’m busy’ but that’s fine ‘cause he’s he’s my Ambystoma bro. So I said to him, we ain’t never seen this fine little dudes doing their thing in the wild, but we know they’re wicked smart. So, what if they’re eating all these stones just to fuck with us?!”  
Luis looks at Bucky expectantly, who stares at him blankly for a moment. “And?” Bucky finally asks.  
“Dude said ‘probably’!” Luis sits back and holds his arms out.  
Bucky picks up a pencil and twirls it around, watching the little plastic manta ray stuck on the end of it move in slow circles. “Unbelieveable,” he offers.  
“I know, right?!” Luis swallows a mouthful of coffee while Bucky sets his little manta ray to attack the computer in front of him, its plastic nose tapping against the screen.  
“I spend more time answering emails and filling out reports than I do actually looking at fish,” Bucky mutters.  
Luis shrugs. “Them’s the breaks, man. Can’t spend your whole life scuba diving on the Costa del Sol.”  
Bucky snorts. “That was one time.”  
He puts down his pencil and finishes his email, then pokes at his research proposal while Luis whistles to himself and fills in reports. The proposal is pretty much finished, but he’s not quite ready to send it off yet, and worries at it like a loose tooth.  
“Damn, brah,” Luis says, eyes fixed on his of statistics. “Send the damn thing already.”  
“You think I should add the chlorophyll concentration satellite imagery?” Bucky picks up his pencil and makes the manta ray swim in little circles again.  
“No,” Luis says flatly. “Send it.”  
Bucky purses his lips and composes an email. He adds the attachments, double checks the address and clicks send.  
“I’m gonna go look at some fish,” he mutters, grabbing his notebook.  
“Proud of you, bro,” Luis calls after him as he pushes his way out the door.

Bucky walks along the corridor and down the stairs, making his way through the labyrinth to the aquarium and then down to the lower floor and the Oceanarium. He follows the lines of tourists as they file past the massive circular aquarium, stopping in front of the curved glass while they all shuffle onto the transparent walled eighty meter long tunnel that runs underneath.  
Bucky knows that the tunnel is safe, that thousands of people walk under it every day. But still. four million litres of water over your head, plus a few hundred fish, some of them very large and very bitey. Bucky snorts and follows the curve of the tank, looking through the distorting glass until he see’s a familiar shape, watching the ebb and flow of life before him.  
One of the volunteers, a kid called Pietro who works at the aquarium with his twin sister, comes jogging past. Damn kid never stays still.  
“Brooklyn, tropical tanks,” he calls out as he passes.  
Bucky waves after him, and starts pushing his way through the stream of tourists to the tropical tanks.

Brooklyn, named by the staff after his thick accent, had started coming to the aquarium a few times a week back in the winter, no doubt having bought himself a season ticket. Bucky had noticed the accent first, so much like his own that it had given him a pang of homesickness, then seen the person who went with it and, yeah, maybe Bucky was a little smitten. Skinny and small, with blond hair that fell into his pale blue eyes and a sketchbook in his arms, Brooklyn had sat cross legged on the floor in front of the Coralline tank and spent the afternoon sketching Sea ferns and Brittle stars. Three days later he had come back again and sketched Neptune grass and cuttlefish.  
It had taken Bucky the best part of a month to get up to talking to him, the first few attempts thwarted by his failure to notice the little plastic hearing aid tucked behind his ear. When he had finally gotten Brooklyn's attention he’d said something dumb but well-meaning, and the little guy had torn him a new one and stormed off, leaving his sketchbook behind.  
And yeah, Bucky was an idiot, but wasn’t an asshole, so he’d chased after him and returned the sketchbook with an apology that was received with moderate grace.  
Over a cup of apology tea in the cafe (Brooklyn couldn’t drink coffee, something about his blood pressure, but he liked the red tea that everyone in Catalonia seemed so fond of) Bucky had learned that Brooklyn was actually called Steve, and that he was in Barcelona on a research trip studying Art in Architecture (which from the sounds of it meant walking around the city a lot and looking at buildings).  
Bucky would have been happy to spend all day listening to him talk but had to get back to work, and a slightly awkward, not-quite friendship had formed between them. Friendship meaning Brooklyn coming to the aquarium to get out of the oppressive heat and do some sketching of things that weren’t buildings while Bucky clumsily attempted to flirt with him.  
Brooklyn never said yes to any of Bucky’s suggestions for coffee (‘Can’t drink coffee, remember?’), or beer (‘I don’t drink’) or looking for jellyfish (‘... Why?’), though his ears would turn pink and he’d he’d stare fixedly at his shoes until Bucky changed the subject.  
But he never said no either.

“Hey, Brooklyn,” Bucky calls out, loud enough to get picked up by the hearing aid, but not so much that other visitors notice and scowl at him.  
Brooklyn doesn’t looks up from his drawing of clownfish and anemones. “I live in Red Hook.”  
Bucky grins and leans against the wall beside where he’s sitting, his sketchbook balanced on his knees. “Yeah, but you’re from Brooklyn. I bet we even went to the same high school. Did you have Mr Erskine in science?”  
Brooklyn snorts and closes his book. “You know, you’ve never actually told me what you do here all day. For all I know you bought that shirt on ebay and just pretend to work here.”  
Bucky looks down at his blue polo shirt. “That is low, Brooklyn. You think I wear this thing for fun?” Bucky reaches out a hand to help him up. “C’mon, I’ll introduce you to the kids.”  
After a moment of consideration, Brooklyn takes the offered hand, fingers warm and calloused as they close around his. Bucky tugs him to his feet and doesn’t let go as he leads the way through the tropical tanks to the Oceanarium.

Brooklyn doesn’t make a fuss about Bucky keeping a hold of his hand and follows quietly as they weave through the crowds, slowing down when they reach the long, curved viewing area of the Oceanarium. Bucky slows down, searching the waters until he sees a familiar shape and speeds up again, dragging Brooklyn after him. He comes to a halt and turns around to face him, waving his free hand to encompass the view before them.  
“This is the Oceanarium. Dumb name, I know. It’s thirty six meters in diameter and five meters deep, filled with _four million_ liters of water and some fishy badasses.”  
Brooklyn raises his eyebrows. “Is this your spiel? You’re a tour guide?”  
Bucky ignores him and points to a large grey shark with a white belly. “That stylish fucker is a Sandbar shark. Don’t confuse him with a Great White, or you’ll make me cry.”  
“Noted,” Brooklyn smirks.  
Bucky points to a group of rays. “Those are Stingrays. You see that barb on the tail, that bitt sticking out? That’s the sting part. They hurt like hell, but unless you’re really unlucky, non-lethal. They’re pretty docile.”  
Brooklyn nods, watching the rays slicing through the water.  
“That weird looking sea flap-flap is a Guitarfish,” Bucky points to an elongated looking fish with a triangular head. “Yeah, don’t give me that look, I didn’t name it.”  
Brooklyn snorts. “So you’re an expert on Rays?”  
Bucky shakes his head. “Nope. Waiting for my buddy here to come say hello.”  
He points to a fish making it’s way towards them, moving fast despite it being… well…  
“What the hell is that?” Brooklyn mutters.  
Bucky smiles at him and waves at the creature sculling towards them. Its large, silvery body is flat and almost perfectly round but for two fins almost the same length as it’s body, one pointing straight up, the other straight down, listing gently from side to side as it swims.  
“He’s known as _Pez Luna_ here, which means ‘Moonfish’, because they bask on the surface in the summer, just flop over on their side and soak up the sun. They look like the moon reflecting on the water. Mostly they’re known as Ocean Sunfish, which isn’t anywhere near as cool.” Bucky looks over at Brooklyn, who is staring with open curiosity. The fish bumps its face against the glass.  
“That is the weirdest looking thing…” Brooklyn murmurs.  
“This guy is just under a meter long, though they can get up to four meters and can weigh over two tons.”  
“Holy shit!”  
“They’re pretty friendly too, they’ll come say hi if you’re scuba diving or out on a boat.” Bucky points to the frill at the back end of the Sunfish. “That’s where a caudal fin would be on a less crackerassed fish, instead he’s got a rounded clavus which he uses like a rudder.”  
The Sunfish bumps into the glass again, and Brooklyn chuckles. “So this is your thing.”  
Bucky nods. “We hardly know anything about them, really. Mating, migration, lifespan, all a bit of a mystery. They have pretty unique requirements for being kept in captivity, so you don’t see them very often.”  
“What kind of things?” Brooklyn asks, pressing his hand to the glass. Bucky doesn’t stop him.  
“They’re full of parasites, I mean seriously. Like, forty different types, it’s insane. And they’re slow feeders, so they don’t do well in a big tank with a lot of competition.” The Sunfish bumps against the glass again. “And they injure themselves by knocking into the tank.” Brooklyn snatches his hand away with a guilty look. Bucky waves away his concern. “Nah, you’re fine. It’s corners that are the main problem, and this tank is circular.”  
Brooklyn doesn’t put his hand back on the glass, but leans closer. “What do they eat?”  
“Gelatinous stuff mostly, crustaceans, little fish.”  
“Gelatinous stuff?” Brooklyn asks dubiously.  
“Yeah, jellyfish.” Brooklyn shudders. “You don’t like jellyfish?”  
Bucky tightens his grip on Brooklyn's hand and leads him back down the walkway between exhibits. 

“Seriously though, how can you not like Jellyfish?” Bucky asks, swerving between clusters of tourists and excitable children. “They’re in every ocean in the world, y’know? Freshwater, marine, coastal, deep sea. Everywhere.”  
“This isn’t making me feel better,” Brooklyn mutters, doing his best to keep up.  
“They’re like, 98% water! How can you be scared of water!”  
“Lots of people are scared of water, Bucky.”  
Bucky pauses to let a school field trip pass, followed by a harried looking teacher. “Point.”  
He stops in front of a large glass tube; pale, translucent Jellyfish floating serenely within. “Look at these guys, Moon jellyfish. You’re an artist, tell me that’s not beautiful.”  
Brooklyn stares into the display, the soft blue light highlighting the cut of his cheekbones, the softness of his lips, and Bucky squeezes his hand a little harder. Brooklyn turns to him and smiles, small and crooked and painfully sweet.  
“Yeah, I guess they are.”  
Bucky can’t look away, something painful lodged in his throat. “Those horseshoe shapes on the caps are their gonads.”  
Oh, for fuck’s sake.  
Brooklyns smile widens and he turns back to the display. “Holy shit,” he laughs.  
Bucky tugs at his hand again, leading him past the exhibit on Siphonophores to a tank tucked in a far corner and covered with a heavy blackout curtain that most of the tourists don’t seem to notice. He pulls back the curtain and tugs Brooklyn into the alcove with him, letting the weighted cloth fall, enveloping them in velvet dark.  
“What the hell?” Brooklyn mutters.  
“Shhh,” Bucky leans in, his lips brushing against the curve of Brooklyn's ear. “Look.”  
He can hear the soft click of Brooklyn's eyelids, feel the flutter of his lashes as he waits for his eyes to adjust, then a soft, startled sound as the bioluminescent organisms in the tank in front of them come into view. Tiny creatures twist and curl in the water, blinking in and out of sight before them, fire red and electric blue.  
Bucky tilts his head, moving slowly in the darkness, trying to give as much warning as he dares with the brush of his nose along Brooklyn’s cheek, lifting his free hand to cup his jaw and pressing their mouths together. Brooklyn makes a quiet, startled sound and surges forward, lips parting and catching Bucky’s in a sudden, heated kiss.  
Bucky rocks back on his heels as Brooklyn licks into his mouth, rough and impatient, his fingernails digging crescents into the palm of Bucky’s hand.  
They lose track of time, lost in the press of tongues and the graze of teeth until Brooklyn pulls back sharply, breath catching in his throat. He lets go of Bucky’s hand and takes a half step back, pulling his hand out of Bucky’s grasp.  
Bucky’s heart sinks a little. He pulls back the blackout curtain, brushing his thumb over his damp lower lip as Brooklyn steps out of the alcove and starts rummaging around in his pockets. Bucky smooths down the curtains, taking his time and giving the guy plenty of time to leave while his back is turned, but when he finally looks around Brooklyn is still there, looking something between embarrassed and defiant as he sucks on an asthma inhaler.  
Oh.  
“You okay? You need water or something?” Bucky asks softly.  
Brooklyn shakes his head, looking a little less pugnacious, and Bucky approaches him cautiously, reaching out a hand to rub between his shoulderblades.  
Brooklyn lets out a sigh and leans into Bucky’s touch. “Fucking lungs.”  
They make their way to a nearby bench, Bucky keeping one arm firmly round Brooklyn’s waist. Brooklyn grumbles quietly about being fussed over but sits down, sucking on his inhaler and counting his breaths while Bucky goes off to get a bottle of water.  
They sit in the quiet at the edge of the deep sea exhibit while Brooklyn sips his water and leans against Bucky’s shoulder, letting himself be soothed with gentle strokes along his spine.  
“This happen a lot?” Bucky asks quietly.  
Brooklyn shrugs, and Bucky doesn’t press, just strokes a thumb across the nape of his neck in silence.  
“So,” Bucky says eventually. “You want to get a drink sometime?”  
He tries to keep the hope out of his voice. He doesn’t succeed.  
“I don’t drink, Buck. You know that,” Steve answers.  
Bucky sighs. “Yeah, I know.” He gives Brooklyn a wary look. “That the only reason you’ve got reservations? Because if you’re not interested I’ll back off.”  
“I didn’t say that,” Brooklyn mumbles, picking at the label on his water bottle.  
Bucky grins at him. “So, if I were to ask you if you wanted to get a horchata or agua fresca or something…”  
“A what?”  
Bucky shakes his head. “Horchata. It’s a drink, made with nuts? Jesus, Brooklyn, what have you been doing here all this time?”  
“Steve,” Brooklyn gives him a playful shove. He considers the offer for a moment. “Okay.”  
Bucky bites his lower lip, eyes crinkling. “Yeah?”  
Brooklyn flushes, visible even in the low light. “Yeah.”

Bucky twirls his pencil around, making the little plastic Manta ray spin in little circles. He doesn’t check his watch again, and glares at the email in front of him. Luis glances up from his papers, looking at Bucky over his black plastic framed glasses and offers a sympathetic hiss.  
“What time you meeting your guy again?”  
Bucky fumbles and drops his pencil, scrabbling under the desk to rescue it. “Six. And he’s not my guy.” Bucky manages to grab the manta ray by the tail and picks it up. “Is he?”  
Luis shrugs. “No idea, brah. You should ask when you see him.”  
Bucky whines and sinks lower into his seat. He hasn’t seen Brooklyn in two days, not since their little make out in the presence of bioluminescent organisms (and, it turned out, one of the volunteers). And they were meeting in less than an hour. And Bucky was pretty sure he was having a heart attack. How do people do this?  
“That what you’re wearing?” Luis asks.  
Bucky looks down at himself. He’s wearing jeans, scuffed converse and a t-shirt with a cartoon Sunfish on it. “Yes?” he says slowly. “Why?”  
“Nothing,” Luis answers quickly. “Looking fine as hell, man.”  
Luis gives him an encouraging thumbs up, and Bucky slumps lower in his chair.  
“I hate you,” he mutters.  
“Nah, man. You love me.”  
Bucky snorts. “Point.”  
He writes a response to a work email, then carefully deletes all the offensive bits and replaces them with vague reassurances, double checks that he’s removed all the rude words and clicks ‘send’. Then he pokes at a funding application until the will to live starts to slowly drain out of him. He checks his watch again. Fuck it, he’ll just be a few minutes early.  
“Okay, I’m going,” he gets up, patting his pockets to check he’s not forgotten anything and picking up his backpack. Luis waves him out of the office with several words of encouragement that Bucky would be happy to never hear from him again, especially the insistence to ‘wrap it before you tap it, brah’. Brr.  
He walks through the maze of corridors, taking the stairs down to the Moll d’Espanya, rather than fight through the late afternoon crowds in the aquarium. He walks around to the main entrance, passing the display boards and advertisements and finds a bench to sit on while he waits. He takes his notebook out of his backpack and props it on his knee, going through his data and making notes for himself in pencil, tapping the little Manta ray against his chin.  
Six o’clock comes and goes, and Bucky doesn’t think too hard on it. Brooklyn probably got held up somewhere.  
By quarter past he’s thinking on it.  
By half past he’s stopped looking at his notes and just tapping his pencil against his teeth. Five more minutes, he tells himself. Five more minutes.  
Five more minutes.  
By quarter to it’s obvious that he’s been stood up, but he stays until seven out of sheer stubbornness.  
Luis joins him for the last ten minutes, and doesn’t question his decision to wait the full hour.  
They don’t get horchata. They go to a bar and Bucky gets very, very drunk.

It’s three days before Bucky sees Brooklyn again.  
Wanda gets distracted by her idiot brother while preparing the fish for the rays afternoon feed and manages to slice her thumb open, so Bucky volunteers to cover for her while Pietro gets her bandaged up and off to hospital, apologizing in low, hurried Sokovian the whole time.  
Bucky finishes mincing up the fish and frozen shrimp, scraping them into a bucket and cleaning down the food prep area. Then he heads out to the exhibit via one of the hidden doors that, when closed, blend into the scenery.  
He climbs up onto the platform over the wide shallow tank and looks down into the water at the rays and Guitarfish swimming in lazy circles. there are already a few dozen people gathered around waiting for the talk to start, and Bucky watches as more arrive. At 2pm he clears his throat.  
_“¡Hola!_ ,” he calls out, getting the audience's attention. “Hello!”  
“Welcome to L’Aquarium de Barcelona. I’m Bucky and I’ll be talking to you about sea flap-flaps.”  
There is a smattering of laughter and Bucky repeats himself in Catalan. He’d bet money on everyone in the room speaking English, but he has principles, damnit.  
“ _Batoidea, Elasmobranchii, Chondrichthyes_ , these are all words that will be of no use to you, unless you want to be a Marine Biologist. Guys, you have to learn so much stuff, it’s like Wikipedia was never invented.” A soft chuckle passes through the gathered people. “Rays are closely related to sharks, skates and sawfishes. They are cartilaginous, which means they don’t have bones, their skeletons are made of tough, elastic stuff. They don’t breathe through their mouths like us, instead they breathe through spiracles, those little holes by their eyes, if you take a look?” He tosses scoops of minced fish into the water, making sure to spread it around the tank.  
He watches the feeding before glancing around the room and sees Brooklyn, right at the back of the room, his arms folded across his chest. Whatever anger Bucky might have been harbouring disappears at the dark smudges under his eyes, at the way his skin looks pale and waxy. Bucky lifts the scoop in greeting, and Brooklyn gives him a small, sad smile in return.  
Bucky throws another scoop of minced fish into the water. “You can tell the Stingrays by the barb on the end of their tails, and they’ve been around a hell of a long time, there are fossils dating back to the Early Jurassic Period, which is about a hundred and fifty million years ago. Yeah, they were swimming around at the same time as Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurs.”  
He repeats his speech in Catalan, struggling a little at the end with the dinosaurs, so he mimes them while the audience laugh and a few helpful locals shout out ‘ _Tiranosaurio_ ’.  
He thanks everyone for listening, and suggests a few other events that are happening later in the afternoon before stepping down from the platform.

Bucky waves to Brooklyn, gesturing for him to wait five minutes and not moving until he gets a curt nod in response. He slips out through the hidden access points to the prep room, cleaning out his feed bucket and putting it away before washing his hands. He wets his fingers under the tap and pushes them through his hair before heading back out, half expecting to find that Brooklyn had taken off again.  
He’s still by the Ray tank, watching as the fish swim past, seeking out the last few scraps of shrimp. He doesn’t look up when Bucky comes over and stands next to him, hands shoved in his pockets as they watch the Stingrays glide past.  
“Sea flap-flap?” Brooklyn says, his voice low and hoarse.  
“A perfectly acceptable common name,” Bucky insists.  
Brooklyn let out something that’s half laugh, half cough, and pats his chest a few times.  
“You feeling okay? Because you don’t look so great.” Bucky murmurs.  
Brooklyn rubs his knuckles against his breastbone. “I’m sorry,” he rasps. “I was gonna call. I didn’t have your number. Then they shoved a tube down my throat, so…”  
Bucky leads him away from the tank to one of the benches around the edges of the room. “C’mon, sit. You need some water?”  
Brooklyn shakes his head while Bucky presses the back of his hand to his forehead. “Someone stuck a tube in your throat?,” he mutters. “We should get you to a hospital.”  
Brooklyn snorts. “Just got out of one.”  
Bucky freezes. “Are you shitting me?” he hisses. “What are you doing here? You should be home, not running around in the middle of summer! Jesus Christ, Brooklyn.”  
“Steve,” he says. “And I live in Red Hook.”  
“I’m not calling you Red,” Bucky grumbles. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and brings up his contact number, holding it out for Brooklyn to copy into his own phone.  
“You were in hospital, then?” Bucky asks softly.  
“Yeah, fucking lungs. Three days of oxygen and IV’s.” Brooklyn sighs heavily. “I was stupid.”  
Bucky has to resist the urge to say something unhelpful. “Okay, well you should go home and rest. C’mon, I’ll call you a taxi.”  
“It’s fine, I can walk.”  
Bucky growls. Actually growls. “Come on,” he repeats slowly. “I’ll call you a taxi.”  
Bucky orders a cab and they walk out to the entrance, waiting in the shade of the building to the side of the people queueing to get in.  
When the black and yellow car comes down the road towards them Brooklyn turns to Bucky. “Maybe we can try again sometime?” he mutters to the tarmac at their feet.  
“Fuck that,” Bucky laughs. “Come over to mine, I’ll make dinner.”  
Brooklyn’s ears turn a charming shade of coral. “So you can cook?”  
Bucky shakes his head. “I can boil pasta and open a jar of sauce, don’t know if you’d call that cooking.” Bucky scratches the back of his head. “You need to take a few days off first. So… meet me here Friday?”  
Brooklyn hums. “Six?” he asks. Bucky nods. “And I’ve got your number this time.”  
The taxi pulls up, and Bucky holds the door open. “Go home, Brooklyn,” he murmurs affectionately.  
Brooklyn leans forward and presses a quick kiss to the corner of Bucky’s mouth before getting into the cab, leaning forward to give the driver instructions in halting, high school Spanish. Bucky pushes the door closed and watches the car pull away from the kerb, not moving from his spot until it disappears into the lanes of traffic.

Luis chucks an eraser shaped like an octopus at Bucky’s head. “Yo, Barnes! You listening?”  
The little purple cephalopod bounces off Bucky’s forehead and tumbles into his lap.  
“Ow,” Bucky mutters, rubbing at his brow. There is a series of soft thumps as the octopus bounces along the floor, rolling under the desk to start a new life among the candy wrappers and biros and Bucky’s missing baseball cap.  
“You got something?” Luis pushes his glasses up his nose. “C’mon, don’t leave me hanging! Is it your proposal? Did they say no? Because there’s plenty of other places y’know. Monterey Bay would snap you up in a second…”  
“They said yes,” Bucky says quietly. “They accepted the proposal.”  
Luis throws both his hands up in the air. “What did I say, brah? We gotta celebrate. C’mon, get your shit, we’re going drinking!”  
Bucky laughs. “It’s not even midday yet.”  
Luis reluctantly lowers his arms. “Damn. You already working on funding?”  
Bucky nods. “Yeah, got a provisional approval, I just need to let them know.”  
Luis claps his hands together. “You do that, and I’ll finish up here, and then we go drinking, yeah?”  
Bucky nods, opening up a new message.  
“I know the place too, the Cat Bar not far from here. I mean, it’s called the Cat Bar, it’s not actually a cat bar. There’s pictures of cats, but there’s no cats. It’s vegan, so cats probably wouldn’t like it there anyway, but the burgers are to die for.” Luis taps his chin with his finger. “Unless you want cats, then we could go to the _Espai de Gats_. But that’s a cafe. Has cats, but not burgers…”  
“Burgers sound great, Luis,” Bucky says gently.  
Luis grins at him. “I’m gonna miss you, man. Don’t you go forgetting me when you’re back in the Big Apple”  
Bucky shakes his head. “Never.”

Bucky is slicing up octopus when Wanda pokes her head into the prep room. “Brooklyn alert,” she says. “Oceanarium.”  
Bucky checks his watch, 5pm, he’s an hour early. He scrapes the pieces into his feeding bucket. “I’ve gotta feed the kids, can you bring him up?”  
Wanda considers it for a moment before nodding, taking off without another word. Bucky washes down the equipment and fetches the rest of his kit before following her out the door. He walks up to the platform around the lip of the oceanarium and along the narrow gangplank, a two meter long platform that sticks out over the water. He’s grateful for the thick rubber lattice that covers the surface. Nothing would try to eat him if he took a tumble into the water, though Pietro would laugh his ass off. He places a green plastic ball in the water, watching it bob around while he sets down his litter picker, a long handled tool with a set of steel jaws at one end and a rubber handle at the other that works the jaws. He puts the bucket of feed next to it and lies down on his stomach, facing the water. It doesn’t take long to get their attention, and pretty soon he has company.  
He hears the door open and the sound of Wanda shoving someone into the room with a curt “Try not to fall in and drown.”  
Bucky looks up and waves at Brooklyn, who edges closer to the tank. Wanda has found him a pair of work boots, bless her.  
“I’m early, sorry,” Brooklyn mutters.  
Bucky grins. “Not a problem. Can you swim?”  
Brooklyn looks alarmed. “I guess.”  
Bucky sniggers and waves him closer, shuffling around so he’s lying crossways on the gangplank, his knees bent and his ankles crossed to keep from getting them in the water. Brooklyn steps carefully onto the platform, edging along until he’s on the gangplank. He sits cross-legged next to Bucky, who pulls a strip of octopus out of the bucket and grabs it with the end of the litter picker before dunking it into the water.  
“What are you doing?” Brooklyn asks, risking a quick look down into the waters. He sits up again. “Ooh, that’s weird.” He blinks for a minute before looking down again.  
Bucky has a terrible urge to kiss him. Instead he pulls the litter picker out and attaches another strip of fish before dipping it back underwater.  
“Mola are pretty slow feeders, and can starve in a large tank. We get around it by target training them, when they see the green ball they know it’s feeding time.”  
Steve follows the line of the litter picker, and sees the Sunfish just under the surface nipping at the piece of fish.  
“They can be trained?” Brooklyn sounds surprised.  
“Oh, yeah. They’re pretty smart.”  
“What do they feel like?” Brooklyn leans in a little closer, watching Bucky pass another piece of food down to the waiting fish.  
“Pretty disgusting. They’re covered in denticles - uh, bristles? Instead of scales, and a thick layer of mucous.”  
Brooklyn doesn’t look disgusted, he looks fascinated.  
“They don’t chew their food. They have these hard, curved plates in their mouths, like a birds beak? They suck food in and out of their mouths and sort of rasp it into chunks.”  
It occurs to Bucky that, as pre-dinner conversation goes, rasping gelatinous fish into chunks is not his best idea ever, but Brooklyn just props an elbow on one knee and rests his chin on his open palm.  
Bucky lowers another piece of fish into the water.  
“Go on,” Brooklyn says with a lopsided smile.

Bucky finishes up with the feeding and takes the equipment back to the prep room to be cleaned up and put away. He makes a note of how much food was eaten and then leads the way through the network of corridors and stairs to his office. If Brooklyn notices him pausing every now and then on the stairs to point out some detail about the aquarium while he catches his breath, he doesn’t comment on it. Or complain.  
Luis is in the office, and beams when Brooklyn follows Bucky into the cramped room.  
“Hey! It’s the little guy from Brooklyn!”  
Bucky half expects a fight, but instead Brooklyn holds out his hand. “Steve Rogers,” he says.  
Luis shakes his hand enthusiastically. “Pleased to meet you, Steve. I’m Luis. You like axolotl?”  
Bucky mouths ‘say yes’ behind Luis’ back while he packs up his bag.  
“Honestly, I don’t know that much about them.”  
Five minutes later, when Bucky has got all his things together and they’re ready to go, Steve Rogers knows a lot about axolotl.

Brooklyn insists that he’s fine walking, and they make their way down the Moll d’Espania into the city. Bucky takes a detour, leading the way through the shady streets to a cabin selling cold drinks and buys a cup of horchata for Brooklyn and a lemon agua fresca for himself. They sip their drinks as they walk, Brooklyn pointing out architectural details in the buildings and mosaics in the pavement while Bucky listens, intrigued.  
They stop off at a grocers and pick up a few things for dinner along with some oddly textured, rough skinned fruit that Brooklyn can’t pronounce, and Bucky does his best not to laugh about it.  
“Herri-moya. No, Cherri-mo-ya. No, damnit,” Brooklyn mutters as Bucky keys in the code to get them into his apartment block.  
“Custard apple,” he suggests, walking to the stairs.  
“Huh?”  
“It’s the English name. Custard apple.”  
Brooklyn frowns. “That’s a pretty stupid name.”  
“Well, they kind of look like apples and they kind of taste like custard,” Bucky responds with a shrug.  
They reach Bucky’s apartment, and he unlocks the door, pushing it open and holding it for Brooklyn to come in. “I’d say excuse the mess, but this is as clean as it gets, no point pretending.”  
Brooklyn chuckles, taking in the sight of the single bedroom apartment. The living room is mostly taken up with a large, battered sofa, a blanket hanging off the back of it. The low coffee table is covered with books and magazines. There is a tiny little kitchenette just off to one side.  
Bucky kicks off his shoes and shows Brooklyn where to put his own, and points to a closed door next to the kitchen. “That’s the bathroom, not that there’s actually a bath in it.” He gestures to an open door at the far end of the living room. “That’s the bedroom, where I’ll be getting changed. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen.”  
Brooklyn nods as Bucky drops his backpack on the sofa. “If you’re gonna watch me get changed, don’t be shy. Whistling and catcalling is appreciated.”  
Brooklyn flushes pink and doesn’t answer, and when Bucky comes back from changing into a clean t-shirt and jeans he’s sat on the sofa flipping through a copy of National Geographic.  
Bucky fetches a pan out of the cupboard and puts water on the stove to boil. “You want anything to drink? Tea or water or something?”  
Brooklyn comes over to see what Bucky is up to. There’s not much room in the kitchen, so he hovers in the doorway while Bucky heats oil in a pan and slices an onion.  
“So, what got you into Art in Architecture in the first place?”  
Brooklyn shrugs, and for a minute Bucky thinks he’s not going to answer. “I was always into art as a kid, but we didn’t have much money. My dad died when I was little and my mom worked all hours as a nurse. And art galleries cost money, so mostly I just had to look at pictures in library books.”  
Bucky listens attentively as he chops up zucchini and tomatoes, and throws them in the pan with the onions, adding garlic and herbs while the pasta bubbles away.  
“But buildings, well you could look at them for free. Don’t need a ticket or anything.” Brooklyn shrugs. “So I got into art school and I painted buildings. Skylines, Coney island. Made art out of the architecture. I guess.” He bites his lip.  
Bucky adds pasta water to the sauteéd vegetables. “Your mom must be really proud.”  
“I hope so. She died a while back.”  
“Jeez. Sorry, pal.” Bucky sucks air between his teeth. “I got folks, plus three bratty little sisters you’re welcome to share.”  
Brooklyn gives him a crooked smile. “So anyway, I used to look at all these pictures of Gaudi in Barcelona, the cathedral, _la Pedrera, parc Güell, Casa Batlló_. Figured as soon as I had the chance I’d come see them for real.” He rests his head on the doorframe. “And here I am.”  
Bucky drains the pasta. “So what’s the plan now? Painting buildings again?”  
Brooklyn shakes his head. “Fish.” He chuckles at Bucky’s incredulous look. “I’m serious. I like… I like how I feel when I’m watching them. How small and vast they are, little specks of light in the deep, little flashes of colour in a gradient of blue and green.”  
“Serenity,” Bucky offers.  
Brooklyn’s mouth twitches upwards. “Yeah. Serenity.”

Bucky mixes together the pasta and vegetables and divides them between two plates before adding some grated cheese. They eat sat on the sofa, Brooklyn crossed-legged with his plate in his lap and Bucky with his feet on the coffee table. There is a comfortable silence between them while they eat, broken only by the scrape of forks on plates and the occasional contented sound from Brooklyn as he chews. Bucky sets his empty plate on the coffee table and sinks back into the sofa. Brooklyn sucks up his last strand of spaghetti and puts his plate down on the table, his lower lip glossy with olive oil.  
Bucky watches him sit back with heavy lidded eyes and leans forward to swipe his tongue across Brooklyn’s mouth.  
“This okay?” he murmurs, before Brooklyn pushes his long, artists fingers through Bucky’s hair and kisses him, frantic and deep and filthy. Bucky curls his hands around Brooklyn’s shoulders, pushing him down onto the sofa. He goes willingly, grazing his teeth against Bucky’s tongue and grinding their hips together. Bucky lets out a low moan, pushing his hands under Brooklyn's t-shirt and trailing fingers up his ribs, thumbing at his nipples until they harden into taut little beads under his touch. He breaks the kiss and ducks his head down to lick at a pebbled areola while Brooklyn squirms and whines. Bucky closes his mouth over the tender flesh and sucks, letting his hand work its way down to Brooklyns jeans and cup his palm over the hot, hard length of him. Brooklyn keens, thrusting into his hand and Bucky unbuttons him, pulling down the zipper and pushes his hand under the thin cotton of his underwear, wrapping his fingers around Brooklyn's cock. He squeezes gently, just to hear the soft curses Brooklyn pants, his fingers twisting in Bucky’s hair as he shifts his weight and moves down, taking a moment to tug Brooklyns jeans and underwear down his hips before wrapping a hand around his cock again and press the flat of his tongue against the head, bitter and saline.  
Brooklyn gasps his name as Bucky mouths at the crown, pressing his tongue to the slit before swallowing him down. Brooklyn whines, low in the back of his throat, clutching at Bucky’s shoulders and gripping handfuls of his shirt, twisting the cotton in his fingers. Bucky keeps one hand braced against Brooklyn's stomach to keep him from thrusting up, the other hand curled around the base of his cock, pumping slowly as he swallows around the head, precome briny on his tongue.  
Brooklyn tugs sharply on Bucky’s t-shirt and he lets his mouth slacken, flicking his tongue across the head one last time before looking up. “You okay?” he asks, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Brooklyns eyes darken at the sight, and he swallows reflexively. “I’m going to… Um. Y’know…”  
Bucky’s mouth quirks up. “Kind of the idea,” he points out.  
Brooklyn tugs at his t-shirt again. “Come here,” he says softly.  
Bucky can’t refuse him, and crawls up the sofa. Brooklyn’s hands work their way down to cup Bucky’s ass, squeezing as Bucky kisses him, gentle and leisurely, like there was nothing else in the world he would rather be doing. Brooklyn fumbles at his clothes, getting Bucky’s pants and boxers off and kicking his own jeans down his legs and onto the floor. Bucky pulls back long enough to tug Brooklyn’s shirt off, letting him pulls his own off in turn and leave them in a tangled heap on the floor before returning to the kiss, lost in the sweet glide of tongues and hands smoothing across skin.  
Brooklyn moans into his mouth, hooking a leg over Bucky’s thigh and thrusting up, hands caressing wherever they can reach. Bucky rolls his hips, lining up their cocks and meeting every thrusts with one of his own, shuddering as Brooklyn clings to him and nips at his lips.  
It’s a clumsy and sweet chase, finding pleasure in the drag and friction of each others bodies, and Brooklyn trembles, pulling their mouths apart long enough to bite Bucky’s shoulder blade and come, a spurt of wet heat between them. He twists his fingers in Bucky’s hair and kisses him, messy and graceless and beautiful as Bucky ruts against the crease of his thigh and spills on his stomach.  
Bucky rolls to his side, shushing as Brooklyn protests and reaches down to the floor to grab his t-shirt. He wipes them both off, balling up the t-shirt and throwing it back down before dragging the blanket draped over the back of the sofa over them. Brooklyn grumbles and wraps himself around Bucky, resting his blond head on his shoulder and falling asleep. Bucky splays his fingers out between his Brooklyn’s shoulders, he presses their foreheads together and goes to sleep.

Bucky wakes up suddenly, and it takes him a moment to work out where he is, and why he’s on his own.  
He shoves the hair out of his eyes and looks across the room at Brooklyn, who is pulling on his jeans and trying to be quiet about it. His mouth is turned down, his eyes red. Bucky wonders how long he’s been asleep. Wonders how long Brooklyn has been awake.  
“Hey,” Bucky murmurs.  
Brooklyn bites his lip. “I have to go to New York,” he blurts out. There is a tremor in his voice that Bucky doesn’t like hearing.  
He rubs his eyes and sighs. “That’s a bit of an overreaction, pal.”  
Brooklyn fastens the button on his jeans, keeping his eyes on the floor. “You know what I mean. I have to go back, and everyone says long distance relationships never work out.”  
Oh, yeah. He’s been awake for a good while, getting himself worked up.  
Bucky snorts and sits up, pulling the blanket around him. “Okay, well whoever said that has never heard of skype. Or text messages or emails or,” he throws a hand in the air. “Snapchat. When you gotta leave?”  
Brooklyn rubs at his arm. “I’m paid up to the end of the month.”  
Two weeks. It’s not much, but it’s still something. “Okay, but when do you actually have to go back?”  
Brooklyn shrugs. “Whenever, really. I’ve got a friend apartment sitting for me.”  
“Could he stay a bit longer? September maybe?” Bucky asks, getting to his feet and stretching. Brooklyn shifts from foot to foot, watching Bucky out of the corner of his eye. Bucky picks up the dirty plates from the coffee table and takes them into the kitchen.  
“Yeah,” Brooklyn says eventually. “He’d be okay with that.”

Bucky goes into the bathroom and runs a flannel under the tap, giving himself a quick clean. He rinses his toothbrush and squeezes a blob of toothpaste before going back out to the living room. “There’s a spare brush under the sink,” he says before shoving the toothbrush in his mouth and scrubbing. Brooklyn stares at him for a moment. There’s something in his eyes that Bucky hasn’t seen before, where previously it was guarded and doubtful. It looks like hope. There’s caution too, but mostly it’s hope.  
Brooklyn goes into the bathroom, and Bucky hears the sound of running water and the wet slap of cloth against skin, followed by the tear of plastic, and he comes out with a toothbrush in his hand. They stand across from each other and Bucky grins around the brush in his mouth.  
“You planning on putting pants on?” Brooklyn asks with a smile. Bucky shakes his head and goes back to the bathroom to rinse out his mouth. He fetches a glass of water while Brooklyn spits and rinses.  
“If you wanted to stay for a while,” Bucky says, offering the glass. “I’m here ‘till September.”  
Brooklyn takes the glass. “That seems kind of sudden, don’t it?”  
Bucky shrugs. “It’s not like you’d be moving in tomorrow. And we’ve known each other for what, six months?”  
“Seven,” Brooklyn corrects him softly.  
Bucky holds his hand out for the glass and Brooklyn hands it over. He takes a sip and passes it back.  
“Ten weeks, give or take,” Brooklyn ponders as Bucky picks up the clothes from the floor and drops them in the laundry basket in his bedroom.

“Turn off the lights?” Bucky asks as he clears clothes and papers off the bed.  
Brooklyn follows after him, switching off lights as he goes. He stands in the doorway while Bucky turns on the bedside lamp and gets into bed.  
“What happens in September?” he asks, setting the glass on the bedside table and turning off the light.  
“You go back to Red Hook, I go to my next research project,” Bucky answers with a grin. It’s far too wide, and Brooklyn raises his eyebrows as he undresses again, keeping his t-shirt on.  
“So what’s the new project?”  
“Satellite tracking Mola mola in the wild, studying their migration patterns, feeding habits and behaviours. The plan is to tag a dozen adults, see how far they travel, plus stuff on geolocation, sea surface temperatures, chlorophyll concentration, light levels, see if there’s any correlation there.”  
Brooklyn slips under the covers and tucks his face in Bucky’s shoulder, curling arms around his waist. Bucky pushes a hand under his t-shirt, feeling the bumps of Brooklyn's spine against the palm of his hand, already familiar.  
“Sounds like it could take a while. You working with another aquarium?”  
Bucky squeezes him a little tighter. “Yeah. New York.”  
Brooklyn is very still for a moment and Bucky waits for him to speak.  
“You couldn’t have mentioned that a little sooner?” Brooklyn mutters churlishly.  
Bucky kisses him on the forehead. “Was gonna surprise you. Sorry I made you freak out.”  
Brooklyn shakes his head. “I freaked myself out. M’not used to… having good things happen.”  
Bucky pushes Brooklyn onto his back and kisses him, soft and slow, before pushing up his shirt and kissing his way down Brooklyn's sternum, pressing his mouth to every rib as he passes until he reaches the concave of his stomach, thumbs stroking slow circles on his pelvis.  
Brooklyn sighs with pleasure, his muscles going lax under Bucky’s touch. “Coney Island?”  
Bucky nods, hooking his thumbs under the waistband of Brooklyn’s underwear and tugging down. “That’s the one.”  
“Not far from Red Hook, either.” Brooklyn adds, his breath catching as he’s enveloped in tight, wet heat. “Twenty minutes, maybe?”  
Bucky doesn’t answer, not in words at least. Brooklyn threads fingers in his dark hair, gentle, caressing as Bucky learns the shape of him, how easily they fit. He swallows, tastes salt and mineral, seawater.

“Brooklyn alert,” Pietro calls out as he jogs past. “Planet Aqua.”  
Bucky swipes at him, too slow. “He’s called Steve,” he shouts down the corridor, but the kid is long gone.  
Bucky washes out the feeding equipment and packs them away before heading up the stairs to the upper floor. The split level exhibit there showcases the aquariums family of Humboldt penguins along with displays on environmentalism and ecology. The tanks are decorated to look like part of a rainforest, with twisting vines creeping around the displays and grasses and ferns covering the top. Even the supports that hold the upper level are made to look like twisted tree trunks. There’s also a large, shallow tank of Rays and Guitarfish with viewing tunnels underneath that kids can crawl through. Or a fairly skinny adult like Brooklyn, though Bucky has only ever made that suggestion once.  
He finds Brooklyn sat cross-legged on the floor by the stairs that lead to the upper level, a sketchbook in his lap. He has a packet of oil pastels at his side, and is working on a picture of the axolotl tank, bright flashes of yellow and green amongst the browns and ochres.  
“Hey, babydoll,” Bucky says, sitting down next to him.  
Brooklyn, and he really needs to get into the habit of calling him Steve before they’re back in New York, stops working long enough to kiss him hello, leaving a smudge of cadmium yellow on his shirt.  
“What you working on?” Bucky asks, tilting his head to look at the picture.  
“Got a few ideas. You remember the dream I had last night?”  
Bucky nods. Brooklyn, Steve, had shaken him awake and started talking about abandoned cities under the sea, wrasse darting in and out of the broken windows of skyscrapers, Moray eels tucked under the wheel arches of taxi cabs, shoals of sardines darting through the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island.  
Bucky had already spent half the morning reading up on sunken cities.  
“Yeah. The underwater cities. You can swim, right?”  
Brooklyn nods. “Yeah, why?”  
Bucky pulls out his phone and pulls up the article on Port Royal, Jamaica. He hands it over, talking softly while Brooklyn, Steve, scrolls through the images. “Thought you might want to learn how to scuba dive.” Bucky scratches the back of his head. “Not just for this, I mean. I’ll be out on the water a fair bit anyway tagging Mola and… maybe you’d want to come with me? And you can scuba dive in New York, you know. There’s like hundreds of shipwrecks in the sixty mile zone from Long Island to New Jersey. And yeah, there are photo’s but,” Bucky shrugs. Steve still hasn’t said a word. “Thought maybe you’d want to see the real thing.”  
Steve, Brooklyn, puts down the phone and grabs a fistful of Bucky’s hair, tugging him in for a kiss, filthy and urgent and deep. Bucky is vaguely aware that there are kids wandering around the place, but the penguins must be doing something distracting because no one seems to care that a 90lb pain in the ass is trying to climb down his throat.  
Steve finally retreats, the last few nips and licks making Bucky’s mouth tingle.  
“I’d really like that, Buck,” he murmurs.  
Bucky clears his throat and shifts, his work pants painfully tight. Steve picks up his oil pastels and goes back to his drawing. “You staying here for a bit?” he asks, the picture of innocence.  
“If I move I’ll get arrested for public indecency,” Bucky mutters.  
Steve, the little shit, kisses the sensitive skin behind his ear. Bucky bites the inside of his cheek, and lists at least three different places where they’re unlikely to get caught, seven if Steve can keep quiet.  
Three it is then.  
He takes the sketchbook out of Steve’s hands and closes it. “C’mon,” he murmurs. “Follow me.”  
Steve grins, wide and bright, and gathers up his oil pastels. Bucky gets to his feet, holding out a hand to help Steve up. Their fingers twine together, warm and rough and familiar.  
Bucky leads the way to one of the access doors hidden in the walls, and they disappear into the warren of rooms and corridors behind the scenery, voices hushed, kisses darting and sweet.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[FANART] Jelly Fish Lovers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11312181) by [TrishArgh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishArgh/pseuds/TrishArgh)




End file.
